Liar
by like-lions
Summary: Spencer takes an unexpected trip down memory lane, and is put into danger in the process.
1. 1: There's A Cold Fire

_**A/N: This was a story idea that I have been thinking of for a while. It's almost complete, so I thought now would be a good time to post it. Please review. :D**_

**Chapter One: There's A Cold Fire**

_Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue._

_- __Naomi Campbell_

"Three murders in three days – this is getting a little ridiculous," Derek Morgan said, hesitantly picking at the three manila folders lying on the table. "Are we certain that this is the same unsub? Murderers take time to get this good, to get this angry..."

"We're positive," Aaron Hotchner said, picking three separate pictures out of the folders. "Same M.O. The killer writes a message on the chest of each of the victims."

Sure enough, the four pictures he tacked up to the corkboard had messages scrawled across the bodies and clothing of the victims.

Richard Horton – Quack

Lucas McDonald – Rapist

Michael Adelaide – Victim Blamer

"Is that lipstick?" Emily Prentiss asked.

"We're practically certain that it is, but it's at the M.E's office being tested. But let's go with the theory that it is lipstick – does that mean that we have a female unsub?" David Rossi said.

"But they're so rare...And this unsub is capable of inflicting great amounts of damage to the victims. These are grown men we're talking about," Hotch said.

"Rare, yes, but it's not improbable to believe that a female could have done so much damage to a victim, regardless of their sex," Reid said. "Depending on her mental status and the amount of adrenaline that was rushing through her veins while committing the murders, she definitely could have victimized them."

"So you're thinking white female?" Jennifer Jareau asked.

"We can't be certain until we get to the crime scene, but it's the most likely profile at the moment," Hotch said.

"Where are we going again?" Reid asked.

"Vegas," Rossi replied. "Looks like you're headed home, Reid."

Hotch rubbed his temples furiously as he got off the phone with the Las Vegas Police Department.

"There's been another murder. Larry Winchester, captain of the Western Las Vegas Police Department. We're headed to the crime scene first," he said.

"What did he have written on him?" Morgan asked.

"Negligent."

"This is sounding more and more like a personal vendetta," Reid said, picking up his phone to call Penelope Garcia.

"What's up, sweetness?" Garcia said, cheerfully.

"Hey, can you look up cases that Larry Winchester of the Western Las Vegas Police Department had been assigned to that have gone cold?" Reid asked.

"Of course," she said, tapping away at her computer. "You know for someone so smart, you clearly don't know the way of the Garcia...Sent."

"What are you thinking, Reid?" Prentiss asked.

"Whoever's doing this has something against each of the victims. If he – or she – thinks that Winchester was negligent, it might have had something to do with not solving a case. Hence, the cold cases."

"Got it," J.J said, nodding. "Got anything so far?"

"Maybe...I'm sending you all the list now."


	2. 2: There's A Crossfire

**Chapter Two: There's A Crossfire**

_We each begin in innocence._

_We all become guilty._

_- __Leonard F. Peltier_

"Did the pictures not do the first three murders justice, or is this more brutal than the first few murders?" J.J. asked, watching her step as she peered into the home of Larry Winchester.

He had been ambushed upon entering his home late that night, pushed into the house and locked in with the unsub. They then proceeded to crush the 52-year-old's skull with a sledgehammer, give him multiple stab wounds to the chest, legs and face, and break a vase over his body before writing "negligent" across his barely there face with a brilliantly bright red lipstick.

Blood covered the walls of the house, and it looked like the unsub went rummaging through his home leaving bloody handprints on the walls and floors, as if she was on all fours.

"This is most definitely more aggressive than the first three murders..." Morgan said, trailing off as he began walking through the house.

"Which means she's getting more violent," Prentiss said.

"Do you still believe this is a female unsub?" Hotch said. "This amount of rage. A sledgehammer was used."

"I do," Reid said, leaving one of the rooms of the crime scene with a bloody package in his glove-covered hands.

It was a rag doll with purple hair, beady eyes and an orange felt dress. It was covered in blood everywhere except for its face, where "pretty" was scribbled in a child-like chicken scratch. Something about it seemed familiar to him, but he couldn't place it.

"Why would a grown man have this?" Morgan said, going to scratch his head, but stopping when he saw his hand was covered in blood.

"I found it on the floor next to the bedroom closet," Reid said, walking into Winchester's room. It was clear that this was what the unsub was looking for. In the closet near where the doll was found were boxes upon boxes of files, each box with a different case number, name, and blood splotch.

"Are those cold cases?" Rossi asked, getting closer.

"Clearly we wouldn't have found the cold case we needed in the system. The old bastard was hiding some of them," Morgan said.

"I don't think he was deliberately trying to hide them," Reid said, picking up one of the boxes. "He might have been trying to solve them off-the-clock."

"Either way, someone thought he wronged them," Hotch said.


	3. 3: And There's Something Inside

**Chapter Three: And There's Something Inside**

_All things truly wicked start from an innocence._

_- __Ernest Hemingway_

While the team tried to work at the police station in Western Las Vegas, it was clear that they weren't getting much leeway with the officers there. They had felt personally wronged by the unsub, which was dangerous, especially for a case like this. They began acting as if finding the killer wasn't the most important thing – moving on was. Still, they tried to work their way through the cases found at Winchester's house.

"What about Matthews, Jason?" Hotch asked, picking the top off of one of the six boxes set out in front of them.

"Doubt it," J.J. said, looking at one of the folders Hotch handed her. "Negligent homicide, a 23-year-old was killed in a hit and run. One suspect, but he had an alibi for the time of the . Case was determined to be cold shortly after."

"Craig, Lacey?" Prentiss said, passing around the folders.

"Nope. They found the killer, but he overdosed a day later," Reid said, looking down at the folder.

"St. James, Stella..." Morgan said, opening up the box. The name triggered something for Reid.

"I think I know that name...Can I see the file?"

Taking a look inside, the picture immediately rang bells for him. It was a little redhead with bright blue eyes, smiling on her backyard tire swing...

"_C'mon, Spencer, push me!" she said, smiling and laughing. Her dark red hair was tied back with a butterfly hair tie, and she was wearing a long babydoll top with shorts underneath._

_Spencer was shy, but she brought something out in him, and he ran over to push her on the swing. He couldn't push very far._

"_I – I can't do it!" he cried._

"_Don't worry; see?" she said, going higher and higher. It was obvious to him that she was pushing herself, but he appreciated the fact that she was trying to make him feel useful._

"_Can I have a turn?"_

"_Sure!" she said, jumping off and landing on her feet, sticking the landing._

"_Go higher, Spencer!" she shouted as he got on the swing. "Higher!"_

_He tried and tried, and finally he got up as high as she did._

"_Kids! Lemonade!" a familiar voice called out from the big, blue house in front of them._

"_C'mon, Spencer!"_

_He tried to jump off – like she did – but he fell. Hard. He tried to hold in the tears, but they kept flowing. He didn't want her to see him cry._

"_C'mon, Spencer!" she said, getting on her knees next to him. "C'mon, Spencer, it's okay! C'mon!"_

"_C'mon, Spencer...C'mon, Spencer, C'mon..."_

"I knew this girl..." Reid said, pointing furiously to the picture in the file. "Stella St. James. She was five, and I was seven. She lived next door..."

"What happened to her?" Prentiss asked, quietly.

He hadn't read the file yet. He just knew that he had known her. She had been there one day, and gone the next.

"She was beaten and molested in the woods near her home," Rossi said, not doing anything to soften the blow.

It hit him like a ton of bricks. Her family had lived next door to his since before he was born. They had always been so friendly. They had an older child. A son – named Marcus. They were in the PTA, the neighborhood watch...The mom was one of the friendliest mothers on the block. He remembered secretly wishing that she was his mom instead of his own schizophrenic one.

Then one night, Spencer woke up to a lot of noise in the middle of the night coming from next door. The next morning, their car – that was always there – was gone.

There one day – gone the next.


	4. 4: There's A Long Game

**Chapter Four: There's A Long Game**

_When we take revenge against another, _

_We lose some of our innocence._

_- __Patrice Redd Vecchione_

It was hard for Reid to deal with the gravity of the situation. He had never had someone so close to him as the victim in any major case like that. Certainly not a rape. She was his best friend growing up, and the only person in his life that could have come close to matching him intellectually. It was hard to grasp.

"She looks like a prime suspect," Hotch said, holding up the bloodied rag doll as exhibit A. "This was hers. It was found in the wooded area where she was...attacked. It has a significance to the unsub. It symbolizes something. Innocence."

"No," Reid said, in his least detailed rebuttal yet. "She didn't do it. She couldn't have. She was always nice and optimistic. She couldn't – she didn't."

"Reid...Being attacked like that changes people," J.J. said, quietly resting her hand on his shoulder, only to be shrugged off. "Post traumatic stress. That piled on top of moving so soon after. It changes people."

"She wouldn't have done this, and she didn't," he said, turning himself away and walking out. He needed to clear his mind, so he headed to the bathroom. Once he left, the team sat and pondered what had just happened.

"You know she's the most likely unsub," Hotch said to the team. "Reid's too close to this case. We might just need to give him some time off. Time away."

"You never know..." Prentiss said. "Her brother, Marcus might have done it."

"Yes, but all of the other victims lead right back to her," J.J. said.

"Richard Horton was her psychiatrist after the accident, he diagnosed her with post traumatic stress disorder and manic depression. Lucas McDonald was the prime suspect in her rape, but he was set free on lack of evidence," Morgan said.

"Her testimony wouldn't have flown in court due to her PTSD," J.J. said.

"Michael Adelaide was their next door neighbor after they moved away," Morgan said. "They moved after he taunted her and said she was asking for it."

"He was 15, she was 6," Rossi said.

"And Larry Winchester was the one assigned her case. He let it go cold," Morgan finished.

"Everything points t—" J.J said, before being cut off by the fire alarm.

Running out of the office, they saw the group of stunned officers, being held off by an armed assailant.

"Don't move."


	5. 5: It's A Long Change

**Chapter Five: It's A Long Change**

_It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be._

_- __Anatole France_

"Stella, we know that's you," Hotch said, stepping forward.

"Stay back!"

"Stella...We know who you are, we know what happened," he said.

"Fuck you," the gunman said. "I'm not "Stella", and you know nothing about what happened."

"HELP!" a cry came out from the bathroom, and suddenly another masked gunman exited the bathroom holding Reid to their chest.

"Any of you move, and we kill him," the first gunman shouted.

On Reid's chest, sprawled in big red letters was "liar".

The gunman holding Reid pulled him out of the building and they heard a car drive off. It wasn't until they could no longer hear the car that the gunman put his weapon down and made a run for it. He was cornered by Lieutenant Chambers, who pulled his mask off.

It wasn't Stella.

"Who are you?" J.J. asked.

"It's Marcus," Morgan said, looking down at the folder.

"Ooh – gold star!" Marcus said, before being forced down against a desk by Chambers.

The team ran out of the building and jumped into the truck, driving alongside several police cars. The rest of the team had no idea where Hotch was leading them.

"Where are we going?"

"Where Stella left unfinished business."


	6. 6: And There's Something We All Hide

**Chapter Six: And There's Something We All Hide**

_No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence._

- _Elizabeth E. Bowen_

When the team reached the woods, they ran until they heard crying. Following the sound, they lifted their guns and walked quietly towards it until they saw the now unmasked Stella holding Reid close.

"Why are you doing this?" Reid said, crying.

"Because you lied to me," Stella said, starting to sob herself. "You promised me, and you lied. You promised me, and you lied."

"What do you mean?" Reid asked, trying to move himself away from the knife she was holding to his throat.

"You promised me, and you lied."

"I never lied to you," Reid said, hesitating.

"Think!" Stella said, moving the knife closer to his throat.

"Stella..." Morgan said, calmly. "Put the knife down. It's over. Now you can leave one of two ways, and I think you know what they are."

"Shutup!" Stella screamed through her sobs. "Think! C'mon, Spencer! C'mon?"

"I – I can't do it..."

"I'll help you, then," she said, falling to her knees and pulling him down with her. "You promised that we'd go out to the woods that night."

"What?"

"You promised we'd go to the woods," she said, sobbing. "To...to catch..."

"Fireflies," he said, sobbing. He finally remembered. It had haunted him for years, and it hurt even more to know that it was true.

"That night..." he said. "I was supposed to go out to the woods to help you catch fireflies."

"Like we used to, remember?" she said, tightening her grip. "Well, look up, Spence. We're there. Can you see 'em?"

"I'm so sorry..." Reid said.

"You left me, you know," she said. "I waited, and waited, and when I heard footsteps, I thought it was you..."

"I'm so sorry..." Reid said.

"And I said, C'mon, Spencer..." she said. "C'mon..."

Reid's chanting became inaudible.

"But it wasn't you. It was that big greasy guy from the Shop-N-Mart," Stella said. "And he...hurt me."

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"He hurt me a lot," she said. "He hurt me...a lot."

"Stella...He's sorry," Hotch said. "Now let's end this."

"It's already over...I know," she said, moving the knife to her own throat. 

"No!"

"C'mon, Spencer...C'mon."


End file.
